I've chosen to skip Sunday, as nothing very interesting happened besides me making a mad dash around Tokyo station trying to find a cheap shirt, pants and tie. I found the shirt and tie, but no pants. We went to the meeting then over Yoshi's house for dinner. The amount of walking we're doing over here is psycho.
Monday we woke up to rain... Fortunately our hotel had umbrellas to borrow because we needed them. We decided on MOS Burger for breakfast. I grabbed a pork and beef burger meal, with Mum and Dean grabbing a chilli cheeseburger, which were nice and spicy. We decided against going to the zoo today, as we didnt think the zoo in the rain would be very pleasant, so we went to Akihabara instead. Akihabara is full of electronics stores, including the 9 floor Yodobashi Camera (we spent a bit of time in there last year) as well as numerous other little stores. Only problem is that the exchange rate's up the pooper, so even if we can get stuff for cheaper Yen wise, when we convert the price into AUD, its not that cheap, and with the warranty and having to cart stuff home in already bursting bags, JB Hifi looks like a better option. We walked around Akihabara for about an hour and a half, before Dean was getting bored.
We decided to make our way to Shinjuku, another massive shopping area. To say that this train station and all its passageways is labyrinthian is an understatement. Tunnels to walk here and there come off the station left, right and centre. We had been walking for ages, when Whitney started feeling woozy from low BG, so we started looking for somewhere to eat. The japanese must be master illusionists, because we saw stacks of buildings around, but no shops to eat or look inside. We came back up to ground level (1F over here) before looking for a department store.
Over here, department stores are massive affairs, usually strapped to the side of a train station. Usually in the Basement floors, they have fresh food markets, where you can buy multitudes of cakes (loaded with delicious jap strawberries), fish, meat, pre-made meals, lunch box meals, wines and spirits from around the world etc. Then the next levels are fairly similar, with ground/1F taken up with cosmetics and perfumes, 2F with Ladies Accessories (they love their bags and shoes over here), 3 -5 dresses/ladies wear, 6 guys wear, 7, kids wear and toys, 8F restaurants then more floors above that... We chose Keio, who operate the Keio Plaza on the side of Shinjuku station, as well as the Keio train line/s. The information lady told us to go to 8F, which we did, but the prices weren't that cheap, and the food wasn't as good as it could have been for the price. It was only when we went down to B1F/B2F that we found the cheap food which we kicked ourselves for and made a mental note of for later.
We didn't have anywhere in particular to look at and for some reason, couldn't find an unsecured WiFi around. When we were at Yoshi's, he told us the reason why he doesn't lock his WiFi (and presumably others as well). They seem to have a different ADSL system over here, but suffice to say, they pay 2000Y (about USD20) for an unlimited connection..... spewww.
Whitney was nagging to go to Harajuku so we decided to head there. After getting on the correct subway line and switching stations, the train we got on was an express (we couldn't read the kanji) to Shibuya, another massive area that we had visited briefly last year. We went to Uniqlo, a store that has cheap basics, like jeans, shirts, undies etc. Dean and I had bought jeans here last year, but we didn't really need to this year, so we didn't spend that long here. We then walked up to this boot shop, which had some of the most crazy boots (mostly for girls) that you have ever seen. There were these gogo boots that had about 4inches of platform on them, with springs in them to keep that spring in your step...
We started walking up the street and kept walking, and eventually came to the back of Harajuku (not really intentional, just did). We went to UT (an offshoot of uniqlo) that sells shirts in a can. You look at the rack for the design that you like, then the tag tells you where to find it in the store. You go to that place, and find your size.. Dean loves this store as he loves the T-shirts here, so he bought a few. I only got one, because all the Large's in the styles that I liked had all gone (I must be similar body size :P).
We walked around for a bit more, but all of us were wrecked, after having walked the best part of 10km that day. We promised Whitney we'd come back another day and look proper (I like Jeans Mate in Takeshita-dori, cheap jeans and jumpers and stuff). We walked through some back streets and eventually (after asking a courier for directions) got back to the subway station, boarded a train then headed back to Tokyo central to get some dinner and a bed..
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